Time stretched in a way that felt wrong. Families came and went, hugging each other while collecting their luggage. The carousel slowed, stopped, and then started again for another arriving flight. My throat began to tighten.
I slipped down from the chair and stood on my toes while searching the crowd. Every adult face looked tall and distracted. I focused on a woman wearing a beige coat and stared at her with desperate hope, silently wishing she would turn into my mother, but she only glanced at me briefly and then looked away faster.
“Mom?” I called softly. “Dad?”
Nobody answered.
I sat back on the chair and pressed my palms against my knees the way I always did when I was trying not to cry. I told myself they would come back soon. I told myself they had forgotten something. I repeated every comforting lie a child invents to keep the world from breaking apart.
A loudspeaker announcement crackled overhead while someone laughed somewhere behind me. A rolling suitcase bumped into my shin and continued moving without stopping.